Size Spectrum Species Sensitivity

Supplemental materials for size spectrum manuscript.

Author
Affiliation

Gulf of Maine Research Institute

Published

November 22, 2022

`

`{=html}

Exploring Spectrum Sensitivies to Species Omission

For the sensitivity testing we estimated the size spectrum slope and intercept for every year and within each survey area an additional time, at each pass one of the species was omitted from the analysis. This was done to capture the relative importance each species had on the estimation of the biomass size spectra.

Loading Bio Data

The biological data used as a starting point is the same “node” used for the size spectrum estimations using the full community. This is loaded so that we can interrogate the overall biomass patterns that correspond to the results we see from the sensitivity testing.

Overall Biomass Distributions

Yearly Patterns

Loading Sensitivity Results

Single Species Removal Impacts

Top 8 Steepeners
Removing these species causes slope to steepen
Species Removed Area Guild Fishery Avg. Slope Shift Avg. Slope Shift (z)
thorny skate MAB elasmobranch Commercially Targeted -0.77 -5.36
smooth butterfly ray MAB elasmobranch Not Labelled -0.64 -4.43
barndoor skate MAB elasmobranch Commercially Targeted -0.62 -4.36
atlantic sturgeon MAB diadromous Not Labelled -0.62 -4.35
butterfish MAB coastal Not Commercially Targeted -0.62 -4.34
spotted hake MAB groundfish Not Commercially Targeted -0.62 -4.34
southern kingfish MAB coastal Not Labelled -0.62 -4.32
striped bass MAB coastal Commercially Targeted -0.62 -4.30
Top 8 Flatteners
Removing these species causes slope to flatten
Species Removed Area Guild Fishery Avg. Slope Shift Avg. Slope Shift (z)
spiny dogfish MAB elasmobranch Commercially Targeted -0.14 -0.99
spiny dogfish SNE elasmobranch Commercially Targeted -0.45 -1.46
cusk SNE groundfish Not Commercially Targeted -0.48 -1.57
atlantic croaker SNE coastal Commercially Targeted -0.56 -1.83
atlantic halibut SNE groundfish Commercially Targeted -0.56 -1.83
atlantic croaker GoM coastal Commercially Targeted -0.36 -1.91
acadian redfish SNE groundfish Not Commercially Targeted -0.60 -1.97
smooth skate SNE elasmobranch Commercially Targeted -0.65 -2.11

Regional Influence Heatmaps

Correlation to Biomass Fraction

Regional Influence Horizon Plots

I think this might help get around the “wash out” of the heatmap. The color scale should be longer, or potentially just not center on white…

Singe Species Checks: